


Uncurling Lifelines

by marauders_groupie



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst with a Happy Ending, Daredevil AU, F/M, blind!Clarke, daredevil!clarke, nurse!bellamy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 08:06:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5736022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marauders_groupie/pseuds/marauders_groupie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their story begins with a puddle full of reflected neon and Clarke's own blood. It begins with her groan and Bellamy's stomach plummeting at the sight. Another good person has come to die in Hell's Kitchen.</p>
<p>Daredevil AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Uncurling Lifelines

**Author's Note:**

> I got a prompt: "Prompt: blind Clarke getting to know Bellamy, falling in love..." and it turned into a Daredevil AU. I'm sorry. 
> 
> The title is from - Florence and the Machine - Various Storms and Saints.
> 
> Enjoy! :D

_But still you stumble, feet give way_   
_Outside the world seems a violent place_   
_But you had to have him, and so you did_   
_Some things you let go in order to live_   
_While all around you, the buildings sway_   
_You sing it out loud, "who made us this way?"_

* * *

 

 

Their story begins with a puddle full of reflected neon and Clarke's own blood. It begins with her groan and Bellamy's stomach plummeting at the sight. Another good person has come to die in Hell's Kitchen.

He's not a good man, he keeps his distance, turns his head away from signs of trouble and he's practiced the art of shrugging whenever someone ends up dead.

But then he sees the vigilante who's trying to do something good for the neighborhood and it's his job, he knows - as a nurse he has to help people.

It doesn't matter than he’s never even stopped to think that she, the Wanheda, might be human and capable of bleeding like the rest of them.

"Hi," he approaches her warily, observes the knife stuck between her ribs, assesses damage. He goes for his typical approach, it can’t hurt. "My name is Bellamy and I'm going to help you."

She nods, strands of golden hair blossoming in patches of red, and by the time he realizes that it's bad, she's scoffing.

"You're going to be alright," he lies, his heart suddenly a very hopeless place.

"You're a shit liar," the vigilante grins, her teeth white and gleaming in the dark of another nameless alley, another death of a nameless vigilante who could have become a superhero.

"Well, you're a shit superhero," he shoots back, pressing the top of his green scrubs to her wound.

"I'm no superhero."

"Vigilante, then."

She hums in agreement, her body small and broken in his arms. Somehow, Bellamy thinks she hates it more than he does - the show of weakness. But he doesn't think any less of her.

The truth is, even the invincible get wounds that make them drop their armor and fall to the ground. They're still strong.

"Vigilante is correct. Superheroes want to change the world. I just want revenge."

 

*

 

Three months later, Bellamy's fingers are sticky with Clarke's blood again but this time he knows her name, this time he knows that she just wants to avenge her father and her best friend, and this time, despite her blindness, he can see the fury burning in her eyes as bright as daylight.

Clarke told him once, at the very beginning of what they have - a friendship, a romance, an absolute idiocy - how she sees the world in spite of her eyes that are blue but her stare is vacant. Like you've turned on the light but no one's home.

"I see the world on fire, Bellamy," she explained. "And the flames - the flames want to swallow me whole."

"So you're the one who has to put them out?" he asked, wounded that she's still running after ghosts and wraiths, people who are part shadow and part death.

She smiled bitterly at him. "Who else?"

And that's how he's crouching next to her, her forehead clammy and the thin fabric covering her eyes wet with tears and someone else's blood.

"Clarke, listen to me, you did it. You did it, it's alright."

"No." She shakes her head and Bellamy's heart clenches. If he knows one thing, it's that her determination is fierce, unyielding. Even if the world came crumbling down, she'd still be running among the ruins and looking for a fight.

"No, Bell, Cage Wallace is still alive."

And so it goes on. So it goes - Clarke lying on his couch as he patches her up, Bellamy's eyes flickering towards his fire escape every morning just to know that she's still alive. Keys rattling in his hand when she didn't come over and he's resolved to going out and finding her.

Bellamy thinks that she maybe doesn't even know how to live in peace. She's been fighting for one thing or the other for as long as she's been living. After her father's death, it was proving to the world that it didn't matter that she was blind - she could do everything. After her best friend's death it was scraped knuckles and gritted teeth, prowling the streets in the dark and calling it her home.

He can't imagine her alive and happy, laughing somewhere far away from this place, her fingers intertwined with his.

But she's fighting the good fight so Bellamy stays. He never got a good choice, only a bad one and even worse. But she's his silver lining, the one he can't walk away from despite seeing the red edges which can only mean someone's death.

He hopes to God it's not hers.

 

*

 

He kisses her after Tsing's drug lab explodes and they're standing on his rooftop. Bits of her hair are charred, she smells like smoke, but she smiles at him and she is alive.

The world didn't set her on fire just yet. She's got a lot of fight left in her.

Bellamy kisses her and her mouth is warm, tastes like her own blood and broken dreams you have to learn how to piece together, and he holds on for dear life because he can see the flames licking at their feet now.

Clarke kisses him like she fights; all in or all out. She burns him with the same flame she learned from the streets and his hands are covered in ashes by the time she thinks to step away.

"We should stop before we've started," she tells him, edge to her voice. That's what she does - she warns him that she can't be what he wants.

But he wants her.

God, he wants her, her ugly and her worst, her best, her laughter, her tears; this romance that's gonna swallow him and his swollen heart and her bruised heart whole.

"I don't want to," he replies, tangling his fingers in her hair. "I want you."

"I can't-“a crease appears between her brows (the first thing she does when she sees him is rip her blindfold off, like she's baring herself to him and doesn't mind), her nose wrinkling in frustration. "I can't be what you deserve, Bellamy."

"I don't care, I need you."

"I need you, too, but," she whispers, "there's nothing but pain in this."

"I know, Clarke. I know. It doesn't change anything."

"I'm a monster."

"So am I." He's not going to pretend that he didn't see fury blazing in her eyes. "It's alright, Clarke. It's alright, we're all monsters."

_But this is our shot at redemption_ , he wants to say.

Instead, he kisses her and thinks, maybe she understands. She kisses him back with reckless abandon and they're living on borrowed time.

 

*

 

Bellamy can't sleep when Clarke is over.

It always feels like this will be the last time she is here, like there is an oncoming storm and she pretends to be invincible for the most of the time but he knows that she bleeds the same as the rest of them.

He tries to fall asleep valiantly, stirring and shifting in the bed, clutching her tighter and then letting her go, breathing her in and keeping a tight hold on things that don't seem important now but they'll become memories.

People like her - and that's the thing that makes his heart clench in his chest when it's given up on thrashing because Bellamy is _not_ giving up on Clarke - they don't get a happy ending.

And of course he can't sleep because sleep means the morning comes too soon, and for now, she's safe in his bed, wearing his shirt that she burrows her head into, a small crease between her eyebrows that vanishes when she looks for his hand on her waist and doesn't come up empty.

These moments in which she is not a superhero with a heart full of fight, but just Clarke who has dinner with him and Octavia, who calls him out on being a history nerd and the only Clarke he can see staying alive.

His ceiling is full of blue and red of police sirens, and he thinks that maybe there is a universe in which he doesn't check the reception area for a girl dressed in black and with a broken body whenever someone says they've got an incoming.

Her voice is barely louder than a whisper but Bellamy starts all the same.

"You're awake." It's not even a question.

"Yeah," he replies, tugging her in closer and burying his nose in her hair. It still reeks of smoke from the burning building, reeks of another close call. "Did I wake you up? I'm sorry."

Clarke turns in his arms, looking at him without even using her eyes. They're still electric blue, like there's a storm reflected in them - the same one Bellamy can feel swallowing them whole.

"I need to stop Wallace," she says finally, huffing preemptively because she knows he's going to fight her on it. "If I don't, no one else will. Tsing's factory burned down, Emerson's been found dead in the Hudson, and Wallace is just raging on. It can't go on, Bellamy. I need to -"

She huffs again, grasping for words that are failing her and Bellamy knows that she's not going to stop.

"I understand. You have to do it, it's just who you are. A hero."

And who Bellamy is is eyes flicking towards the door, the TV, anything that can tell him that she's still alive. Bellamy is waiting for her and kissing her every time like it's gonna be the last and that's just how humans are, isn't it?

We love the thing that is killing us. Always and without fail.

Clarke is quiet for a long time and then she burrows her head into the crook of his neck, her feet cold when she pushes them between his calves.

"I'm not a hero, Bellamy." He hardly even hears her, her breath hot on his neck. "I'm just angry."

"What's the difference?"

"Heroes don't kill people. I do."

He'd kill them, too, if he was as brave as Clarke to get out and fight it. Instead, he sticks around the hospital to patch people up. She tries to stop shit from happening and he's just fixing the consequences.

Maybe it's balance. And maybe it's just nothing at all.

"If I'm anything," she presses on, "it's a monster."

He's seen her at her worst, torturing Cage's goon by the water tower, dangling him off a ledge. He's seen the blood thirst in her hands, heard it in her voice when he couldn't see it in her eyes.

Bellamy has seen all of her and he still knows that her heart might be covered in thick layers of tar, of bitterness, but she's trying to do the right thing.

"You want forgiveness?" he asks, no teasing heat to his voice. "Because if you do, I'll give that to you. You are forgiven. I don't think there are good guys anymore, Clarke. How can you be a good guy when you're fighting monsters?"

"I could _try_ ," she murmurs, sounding angry with herself. "I could not give up."

"Who we are and who we need to be to survive are two very different things, you ought to know that."

Her chuckle vibrates on his skin and her lips are pulled up into a smile when she moves away.

"Full of wisdom tonight, aren't you?" she teases. Then he feels her hands sliding down his stomach, hooking into the waistband of his boxers and the air shifts around them.

There might be a storm coming in the morning, but it's calm now.

"Kiss me," she breathes and Bellamy is never the one to deny her anything, fitting their mouths together and winding his arms around her waist.

No, Clarke Griffin isn't a hero. But she's a good person. Better than this world deserves.

 

*

 

Wallace is dead and the newspapers are full of his face. Clarke's hands are stained with his blood and she comes to Bellamy.

"He's dead. I - I did it."

She sounds like she can't believe it and Bellamy just wraps his arms around her, pulls her closer, does what he does best - reminds her that she's still human.

"You're my anchor," she told him. "You ground me, you - you make me feel like there's maybe more to life that impossible decisions and a tragic end."

"Good," he grinned. "I think we deserve a really happy ending."

She laughed then but now she's crying, silent tears running down her cheeks and Bellamy knows she's letting it all out.

Years of nothing but hate fuelling her revenge but she's still got an innocent heart thrashing against her ribcage.

Bellamy doesn't pretend that she's good. She's not, her heart is still full of black cracks, but. She can laugh at his jokes, shoot back witty replies at Raven and she still smiles at children on the street.

No good guys, no bad guys, just the two of them and his bathroom. He runs the water in the tub for her, rubs her back when she chokes on her sobs and wraps her in a towel when she's gone silent and the red color of blood has gone down the drain.

"He's dead," she whispers again, incredulous. "Wallace is dead."

Bellamy thinks about all the kids whose parents won't die as collateral damage in a gang war and he exhales, that breath that's been caught in his throat ever since he saw his mother's lifeless body.

He exhales and prompts her to do the same because the night is at its darkest but dawn is coming soon.

"It's gonna be a beautiful day," he tells her, smiling and she must hear his heartbeat because she smiles back.

They've got a future now.

"Let's run away," he proposes, unable to stop himself. "Let's just get the fuck away from here, Clarke. Let's go somewhere where no one knows our names and let's - let's not fight for a while, huh?"

He tried to tell her once that he's not fighting, not really. But she wouldn't hear it, told him that he's fighting to keep his head on his shoulders, to keep his sister in school, to save lives in the hospital.

So he's fighting, too.

"That sounds nice," she says and he knows it doesn't. There's always going to be someone who needs her in Hell's Kitchen. "I'll think about it."

When he's at the Grand Central days later, waiting for her under the clock and wondering if he's going to board the train without her, minutes pass but there's no gleam of gold in the crowd.

He's got a weekend bag slung over his shoulder - all of his life in it: pictures of Octavia and him when they were still young and dared to hope, two books, some clothes and a ring with a single ruby in the middle - and he knows she's not coming.

Her voice sounded so hollow over the phone yesterday, when he told her that he's got two train tickets and they should just leave. Together.

"I'll - okay, I'll be there," she huffed, but it didn't sound honest.

He gets it.

He hopes she does, too, when he turns around and forces himself to walk towards the platform. His shoes are scuffed, his bag is heavy and Clarke isn't there.

There's been enough looking at the crowd for signs of her. At least she's done whatever she needed to do. At least she won't need his trembling hands to patch her up again.

And then, he hears his name in the crowd and his heart explodes in his chest, hoping like he hasn't seen all that pain and horror.

"Bellamy!"

She's running towards him, a bag over her shoulder, and her cheeks are red but she's here.

She's here, she's here, she-

"You're here," he whispers, unable to believe that it's really Clarke's cheeks he's running his thumbs across, really her lips that press against his. "You came."

And she snorts, like she always does. "Of course. You didn't think I'd let you leave on your own?"

He doesn't reply until they're sitting in the train, her head on his shoulder, people looking through them because no one can see what she's done, what he's failed to do.

"I thought you'd stay."

Clarke sighs, all of the exhaustion catching up with her in that one sigh. "I was going to. And then I realized that I would chase you to the end of the world and back."

With the same fire like the one that's been burning around her until she finally put it out.

He's got that ruby red ring to remind her of just how ferocious she is. And how much he loves her, no matter what.

But now's not the time.

No, now he just kisses her and they let the train take them far, far away. They're good people and they deserve to be happy.

 

* * *

 

 

_You'll find a rooftop to sing from_  
_Or find a hallway to dance_  
_You don't need no edge to cling from_  
_Your heart is there, it's in your hands_  
_I know it seems like forever_  
_I know it seems like an age_  
_But one day this will be over_  
_I swear it's not so far away_

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, that's that. This is actually the third version of this AU I've written and despite struggling and working hard on the first two, this one just happened this morning so 3/4 of it were written in my phone's notes app. I hope it doesn't show. :D
> 
> Also, I don't normally include lyrics before and after my fic, but these just fit with the whole theme and I couldn't help myself.
> 
> In any case, thank you for reading and if you liked it, please let me know. Kudos & comments are a great way to make me feel like I'm not shouting into the wind. :D
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> p.s. i'm also on [tumblr](http://marauders-groupie.tumblr.com) and i take prompts, yes.


End file.
